15 Merit Badge "Tour"?

[DocOccult]

Last week, a kind person named "Cat-something" took everyone on a tour of the AP exploration badges, then Ouro, then somewhere else I forget. At the end we all had 15 Merit Badges. I've tried to remember how she pulled that off so I could do it with my other characters, but all I've been able to do is get the 5 merits for the AP badges.

 

Does anyone have an idea what she did? I'd like to help out other new people and get my other new guys loaded up. My highest character is only 16, so I don't have a bankroll to spread around.

[FFFF]

Getting all the exploration badges in a zone nets you 5 merits plus the Passport accolade and Long Distant Teleporter power. Assuming, you toured 3 zones, that’s 15 merits. 
 

Edit: I think that tour is one of the best ways to help new players. The second best is having players switch to villains for all the mayhem badges that switches to the Task Force Commander when they return hero side. 

Edited January 29 by FFFF
Per @macskull below, TF Commander, not Atlas Medallion

[macskull]

2 hours ago, FFFF said:

The second best is having players switch to villains for all the mayhem badges that switches to the Atlas Medallion when they return hero side. 

Task Force Commander, not Atlas Medallion, but I could argue that isn't necessarily the best thing to steer new players towards since doing TFC awards a whole heap of XP and merits.

[Ironblade]

21 minutes ago, macskull said:

Task Force Commander, not Atlas Medallion, but I could argue that isn't necessarily the best thing to steer new players towards since doing TFC awards a whole heap of XP and merits.

That's what I think also.  I do the full set of signature task forces on every single character.  Even the long and annoying ones aren't so bad when it's the weekly and dropping double merits plus bonus XP.

[macskull]

2 minutes ago, Ironblade said:

That's what I think also.  I do the full set of signature task forces on every single character.  Even the long and annoying ones aren't so bad when it's the weekly and dropping double merits plus bonus XP.

For new players, I agree. I've been doing this long enough that I haven't done TFC a single time since I found out about the mayhem mission contact.

[Water]

The instance I heard of exploration badges and plaques on live when I 'free trialled' the game all of those years ago I was hooked (maybe it was an "ooh! Shiny!" moment). I've almost memorised all of the zones and still use Viodiot Maps location images to get the ones I cannot remember. These days I can do the whole map in 2-3 hours including gold/red/blue/echo sides.

 

It's so easy to just roll to another map for 5-10 minutes in quiet times and all of a sudden that's all of the explores done. Most count toward other badges and some toward accolade abilities. It is a well developed system of activity by the original devs and I'm glad HC see fit to maintain and expand it.

 

I seen a lot of toons over the years tell me they aren't interested in badges, in the knowledge that they give +endurance/+hit-points and other abilities. Personally I enjoy the activity of collecting them in the open world and the rewards they give.

 

Each zone with all explore badges collected gives 5 merits and a small  amount of xp.

 

[Scarlet Shocker]

you can get five very easy merits if you go to Echo: Galaxy City and do the badges there - the Plaques also feature in the Atlas Medallion award so it's well worth doing!

[SuperPlyx]

You may want to add VidiotMaps to help you find the badges. You can get it from  the City Mod app here: City Modder

Edited January 29 by SuperPlyx

[AboveTheChemist]

I'll shamelessly plug a couple of mods I made to help with gathering badges/plaques in a zone. They both essentially do the same thing, just via different methods.

 

One is a map texture pack that is built on and overlays vidiotmaps, showing the optimal path to gather all the exploration badges and history plaques in a zone. It adds a red path to vidiotmaps that you can follow to gather all the badges/plaques. It is easily installed and uninstalled via the City Mod Installer, so you can essentially turn it off when you are done with it. The main thread for this mod is at this link.

 

The second mod is basically a popmenu version of the same mod. You select the zone and a starting badge in that zone, then use a set of rolling keybinds to navigate along the route using in-game nav markers. It requires manual installation, but instructions and more info can be found in the mod thread at this link.

 

Either of these mods will help you set up your own 'tour' of whichever zones you want, and collect the exploration badges and history plaques there in the most efficient manner possible.

[Ironblade]

7 hours ago, AboveTheChemist said:

The second mod is basically a popmenu version of the same mod. You select the zone and a starting badge in that zone, then use a set of rolling keybinds to navigate along the route using in-game nav markers. It requires manual installation, but instructions and more info can be found in the mod thread at this link.

 

Yeah, this is the one I use.  It's excellent.

[lemming]

All my characters wind up with Atlas, Boomtown, Bricks, Echo: DA, Echo: Galaxy, Founders, IP, Kings Row, Perez Park, Skyway, Steel Canyon, Talos, and Terra Volta being fully explored.   I get all the exploration and history which cover the requirements for the various stat accolades, plus a lot of extra.

 

I tend to finish off the Echos just because, and then regular Faultline and DA.  ATC's stuff makes it easy though I have it memorized by rote now...

[KC4800]

There really should be no rush to collect ALL the exploration badges in all the zones. Once you get the 8 from Atlas Park, that unlocks the TP beacon. Then you only need one exploration badge from each zone to be able to teleport to that zone. Just find the one closest, the one that is easiest to remember. As you play and fight baddies in the street, the tips will drop and you will find the others. It's a process that doesn't need completed in a couple hours. It is ruined if you go get Vidiotmaps and find them all in 15 minutes. IMO.

Edited January 31 by KC4800

[Perfidy]

On 1/30/2024 at 8:41 AM, AboveTheChemist said:

 shamelessly plug

And you should feel no shame, but a lot of pride. These tools you and others have come up with have saved me SO much time and effort, I can't help but think you should get a parade and a statue.